The short trip across to Nosy Be in Madagascar from Mayotte would take just over a day and, with a wind from the south, an easy sail. We were up early so made an early start motoring south to the passage out through the reef, 7-8 miles. Clear of the reef we had a good sailing wind but very short period waves. The rule we were told in New Zealand was ‘add six to the height of the waves’, that gives you a safe and comfortable wave period in seconds. The period we had was 5 seconds with a wave height of one metre. Safe enough but uncomfortable. This did improve during the crossing and the wind moved further behind us before it died the next morning as expected.
Just after daybreak we could see the outline of land, but we continued slowly as we didn’t want to arrive before afternoon. It was Sunday and if we arrived in the morning, we would have to clear in that day which being weekend is more expensive. 15.00 hrs we dropped anchor in Hell-ville. This has a totally different feeling from anywhere we have been recently.
As we approached the island, about 40 miles off there are some shallow patches and these appear to be the fishing grounds for the larger of the local outrigger canoes. About 20-30ft long, hardly any freeboard and with a lateen sail supported by a forward raked mast (technical bit for sailors).These and smaller canoes be seen being paddled out in the morning and sailing back in the afternoon. The smaller ones have square sails supported by two sticks.

 

Various sailing rigs are used here on canoes and dhows
Clearing in on Monday morning involved three officials plus our agent Jimmy, coming on board, luckily Tomas on Saorise collected them from the jetty in his larger dinghy and we split the load going back. They all collected their share of the paperwork we had prepared asked a few questions and took a couple of photos and we were free to go ashore. We had to get some local currency, the next challenge, before we could finalise the paperwork in the offices. We walked into town past the Tuk-tuk drivers plying for custom and tried the ATM’s the first refused our cards, the second allowed us to take money but only 800,000MGA, Malagasy Ariary, at a time, about £140. We needed about 1,500,000 MGA to pay for clearance, cruising permit and agent's fee. We took 2.4 million, about a two-inch wad, to ensure we had enough to see us through the first week or so. We have visas for 90 days and a cruising permit for that time as well, so we expect to be in Madagascar for some time.

Two common forms of transport, Tuk-tuk and Zebu cart.
Clearance over we wandered into town to sort out SIM cards for our phones, check out the supermarket and open market and to have lunch which we did at a very pleasant waterside restaurant.
All this time our dinghy was tied up to the busy ferry pontoon guarded and moved by Smiley, the local boat boy, 10000MGA per visit.
Sunday and Monday nights there was loud music from on shore until about 2.00 AM and when walking to the atm we met a procession coming the opposite way, Jimmy described this as Carnival, obviously something important but not clear what.

The band was out to greet us, Carnival in Nosy Be.

Street life in Hell-ville

After another quick trip into town on Tuesday morning, we left Hell-ville and headed out to Nosy Komba to catch up with Brian and Alison on Ozone who had already been here over a week having come in direct from the Seychelles. Over a meal in a small local restaurant, they gave us the lowdown on the anchorages they had been to and their Lemur experience on this island.
We had a trip ashore next day and visited the lemurs, these are wild, but they do get fed and for a piece of banana they are happy to sit on your shoulders. Amazing gentle creatures.

  

Black Lemurs on Nosy Komba, males are black and females brown
After another couple of nights on Nosy Komba we moved to Crater Bay, quieter than Hellville it is the base for a number of tourist catamarans and has a ‘yacht club’ and restaurant that welcome cruising boats. A walk into town from here requires running the gauntlet of TukTuk drivers and as they pass they slow down and ask “TukTuk?” a reminder of the Andaman's but they do look in better condition. In town here we bought a few veg and checked at the pharmacy regarding the preferred malaria treatment as we will be in malarial hot spots for a while. The atm here was limiting withdrawals to 200,000MGA Phil waited here to withdraw cash, each person that went in the booth made numerous transactions We just took another million all in 5,000MGA notes, roughly 80p notes.